I would disagree that the WP journalist's view was entirely unjustified. Unlike Nancy, I believe it wasn't a story about disciplines competing for "ownership" over online social networking (I think only an academic might think like that ;-). No I believe the journalist was writing from her perspective, likely shaped in the past, that academics are a petty lot who often grind down the very people who are to take their craft to the next generation. As a former journalist and current academic, I know that journalists tend not to see academics as ego-driven and self-indulgent. They also truly do not know what constitutes "good research," but then, why would they? What they do know is what constitutes a "good story." This involves drama, tension, a peak, and a denoument. It is possible this journalist had previous but subconscious knowledge about a a very real phenomenon in academia, that is, the closing out of emerging research and researchers, which is driven in part by power struggles. Sounds like a good story to me! Even if it's wrong... Of course this does not justify the inaccurate representation of the researchers. Nor does it excuse this journalist's very quick and surface review of the subject. Like Bill, however, I would choose to apply a political economy of journalism to this. The "landrush" mentality is partly the journalist's herself! Everyone wants to be the expert of the big thing, whether it be Bre-X, Dot-Com, or Asset-backed Commercial Paper. All of these take years to understand well but journalists do not have that luxury. It is the constraints of their jobs that force them to be superficial and stake their claims quickly.